5 ms·

Top kill animation from BBC - how BP oil well is being plugged

66 points by dctoedt 16y ago

mootothemax 16y ago
To think, all it takes is a simple set of graphics like this and I think I finally understand what this attempt is all about. Good work!
- what 16y ago
  CNN had Bill Nye The Science Guy explain it yesterday. EDIT: Here's a link to the video, he comes on at about 1:40 http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/05/25/jk.bill.nye.science.of.oil.cnn http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/05/25/jk.bill...
  - bryanh 16y ago
    This is the only time I've ever been more impressed by CNN than by the BBC.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
mnemonicsloth 16y ago
Let's hope so. I don't think the outcome of this procedure is going to be be as clear-cut as the media have been reporting. "Roll the dice" seemed to be the story as of last night. In reality, we'll only know if top kill worked in August when the relief wells are completed. Until then, we'll only be able to say the fix hasn't failed yet. The worry is that if the fix is reported to have worked and problems materialize a month later, they won't get the same attention as another blowout tomorrow.
- bho 16y ago
  so far it sounds like at the very least, the oil leak has been slowed down. i thought it was neat that the 'mud' was really a non-newtonian fluid.
Jun8 16y ago
I was totally amazed at the super advanced, sophisticated machinery until I saw, on slide 6, that they'll be using a "junk shot", made up of tyres, rope, and golf balls as a last resort! One more use for all those balls that end up in course ponds, I guess.
mynameishere 16y ago
Look, I'm as uncomfortable with the physical world as anybody here, but I just can't see why you would have something called a "blowout preventer" that doesn't also have a freaking valve somewhere along the line. Turn valve, oil stopped. Is it really that hard? There's like 50 different places water from a city water tank and your sink can be stopped. And again, if you don't like that "Plan B", ask the BP engineer in line at WalMart with 50,000 boxes of X-out titleists what his solution is.
- tedunangst 16y ago
  The blowout preventer has a valve. They turned it. The oil didn't stop.
  - ugh 16y ago
    So there were presumably multiple failures? I would assume there is some redundancy in the system (i.e. at least two valves).
    - jmtulloss 16y ago
      I'm not sure, but I think a lot of the failure prevention systems went down with the rig.
    - tedunangst 16y ago
      It's harder to find the news articles discussing the early efforts to close the valves because it's not exactly news anymore, but here's what wikipedia says. "The rig's blowout preventer, a fail-safe device fitted at source of the well, did not automatically cut off the oil flow as intended when the explosion occurred. BP attempted to use remotely operated underwater vehicles to close the blowout preventer valves on the well head 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level, a valve-closing procedure taking 24–36 hours. BP engineers predicted it would take six attempts to close the valves. As of May 2, 2010, they had sent six remotely operated underwater vehicles to close the blowout preventer valves, but all attempts were ultimately unsuccessful."
- 16y ago
noodle 16y ago
question: why didn't they try this first before they tried the "drop a big box on it" method? seems like a much more sensible solution.
- timmaah 16y ago
  supposedly there is a risk of it making the leak worse.
  - noodle 16y ago
    yeah, but the "drop a big box on it" technique has been proven to not work many times in the past. i did some shoddy research that leads me to believe that its never worked. seems like they should just cut to the solutions that have a better success rate.
- frossie 16y ago
  Because it took a while to set this up. It seems like they are trying every solution they can think of, in the order in which they become ready.
omd 16y ago
Maybe it's from working on the Internet too much, reading about innovation, collaboration, open source, etc, but somehow I get the feeling the oil industry needs to evolve much like the old media was forced to. I bet if BP used crowdsourcing instead of asking the "old school engineers" for ideas, some smart 14-year-old somewhere would have thought of a better plan than to stuff the hole with golf balls.
- ars 16y ago
  They received something like 70,000 ideas. And not a chance in the world would that work. Open source software works because the people who contribute are .... programmers! Other kinds of crowd sourcing works by doing something simple/stupid many times. Most people don't even understand the problem. So how do you expect them to come up with a solution? How many people do you know who have the slightest clue what they do to drill a well? And reading wikipedia doesn't count.
  - pmccool 16y ago
    Also, unlike open source, there's no way for people to experiment en masse on leaking deepwater oil wells. Solutions can't be attempted in parallel.
ck2 16y ago
I guess the only questions is why did it take weeks to do get this into place and several days to evaluate once in place? How exactly could they have made this worse by rushing it a little bit? Shouldn't there have been round-the-clock engineering shifts being paid for? Why is anyone going home at night to sleep comfortably? In our terms this is like "oh well, server is down across the country, it's hard to reach so we'll just analyze our options for a few days and try a few things until something works - nothing to lose sleep over".
- nano81 16y ago
  You are underestimating how important logistics and planning are to a large scale operation like this. This needs large pieces of equipment and a group of specially trained people assembled and brought to a place which is not easily accessible, with a carefully thought out plan to maximize their chances. All that takes time. BP has all the incentives to stop this as quickly as possible; it is costing them lots of money and continues to be a PR catastrophe every day it continues.
  - ck2 16y ago
    Do you realize the EXACT same problem happened 30 years ago by the EXACT same drilling company? There is nothing "new" here. They should know what to do and only have better techniques to solve problems, but they are doing no better than 30 years ago. Nothing worked 30 years ago, they had to wait 9 months while they drilled relief wells. The tophat failed, the kill failed, everything.

66 points by dctoedt 16y ago

To think, all it takes is a simple set of graphics like this and I think I finally understand what this attempt is all about. Good work!

what 16y ago
CNN had Bill Nye The Science Guy explain it yesterday. EDIT: Here's a link to the video, he comes on at about 1:40 http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/05/25/jk.bill.nye.science.of.oil.cnn http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bestoftv/2010/05/25/jk.bill...
- bryanh 16y ago
  This is the only time I've ever been more impressed by CNN than by the BBC.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

mnemonicsloth 16y ago

Let's hope so. I don't think the outcome of this procedure is going to be be as clear-cut as the media have been reporting. "Roll the dice" seemed to be the story as of last night. In reality, we'll only know if top kill worked in August when the relief wells are completed. Until then, we'll only be able to say the fix hasn't failed yet. The worry is that if the fix is reported to have worked and problems materialize a month later, they won't get the same attention as another blowout tomorrow.

bho 16y ago
so far it sounds like at the very least, the oil leak has been slowed down. i thought it was neat that the 'mud' was really a non-newtonian fluid.

Jun8 16y ago

I was totally amazed at the super advanced, sophisticated machinery until I saw, on slide 6, that they'll be using a "junk shot", made up of tyres, rope, and golf balls as a last resort! One more use for all those balls that end up in course ponds, I guess.

mynameishere 16y ago

Look, I'm as uncomfortable with the physical world as anybody here, but I just can't see why you would have something called a "blowout preventer" that doesn't also have a freaking valve somewhere along the line. Turn valve, oil stopped. Is it really that hard? There's like 50 different places water from a city water tank and your sink can be stopped. And again, if you don't like that "Plan B", ask the BP engineer in line at WalMart with 50,000 boxes of X-out titleists what his solution is.

tedunangst 16y ago
The blowout preventer has a valve. They turned it. The oil didn't stop.
- ugh 16y ago
  So there were presumably multiple failures? I would assume there is some redundancy in the system (i.e. at least two valves).
  - jmtulloss 16y ago
    I'm not sure, but I think a lot of the failure prevention systems went down with the rig.
  - tedunangst 16y ago
    It's harder to find the news articles discussing the early efforts to close the valves because it's not exactly news anymore, but here's what wikipedia says. "The rig's blowout preventer, a fail-safe device fitted at source of the well, did not automatically cut off the oil flow as intended when the explosion occurred. BP attempted to use remotely operated underwater vehicles to close the blowout preventer valves on the well head 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level, a valve-closing procedure taking 24–36 hours. BP engineers predicted it would take six attempts to close the valves. As of May 2, 2010, they had sent six remotely operated underwater vehicles to close the blowout preventer valves, but all attempts were ultimately unsuccessful."
16y ago

noodle 16y ago

question: why didn't they try this first before they tried the "drop a big box on it" method? seems like a much more sensible solution.

timmaah 16y ago
supposedly there is a risk of it making the leak worse.
- noodle 16y ago
  yeah, but the "drop a big box on it" technique has been proven to not work many times in the past. i did some shoddy research that leads me to believe that its never worked. seems like they should just cut to the solutions that have a better success rate.
frossie 16y ago
Because it took a while to set this up. It seems like they are trying every solution they can think of, in the order in which they become ready.

omd 16y ago

Maybe it's from working on the Internet too much, reading about innovation, collaboration, open source, etc, but somehow I get the feeling the oil industry needs to evolve much like the old media was forced to. I bet if BP used crowdsourcing instead of asking the "old school engineers" for ideas, some smart 14-year-old somewhere would have thought of a better plan than to stuff the hole with golf balls.

ars 16y ago
They received something like 70,000 ideas. And not a chance in the world would that work. Open source software works because the people who contribute are .... programmers! Other kinds of crowd sourcing works by doing something simple/stupid many times. Most people don't even understand the problem. So how do you expect them to come up with a solution? How many people do you know who have the slightest clue what they do to drill a well? And reading wikipedia doesn't count.
- pmccool 16y ago
  Also, unlike open source, there's no way for people to experiment en masse on leaking deepwater oil wells. Solutions can't be attempted in parallel.

ck2 16y ago

I guess the only questions is why did it take weeks to do get this into place and several days to evaluate once in place? How exactly could they have made this worse by rushing it a little bit? Shouldn't there have been round-the-clock engineering shifts being paid for? Why is anyone going home at night to sleep comfortably? In our terms this is like "oh well, server is down across the country, it's hard to reach so we'll just analyze our options for a few days and try a few things until something works - nothing to lose sleep over".

nano81 16y ago
You are underestimating how important logistics and planning are to a large scale operation like this. This needs large pieces of equipment and a group of specially trained people assembled and brought to a place which is not easily accessible, with a carefully thought out plan to maximize their chances. All that takes time. BP has all the incentives to stop this as quickly as possible; it is costing them lots of money and continues to be a PR catastrophe every day it continues.
- ck2 16y ago
  Do you realize the EXACT same problem happened 30 years ago by the EXACT same drilling company? There is nothing "new" here. They should know what to do and only have better techniques to solve problems, but they are doing no better than 30 years ago. Nothing worked 30 years ago, they had to wait 9 months while they drilled relief wells. The tophat failed, the kill failed, everything.